Italian Food Extravaganza Part I

Traveling in Italy turned out to be easy and fun everywhere we went: no Bad Days at all, not one. A big part of the fun was the food; it was so delicious and so colorful that I took pictures of it constantly, planning to attempt some of this back home.

Granita in Rome: ahhhhhhhhh!

Vendors' stands in Rome are plentiful, cheap, and eye-catching.

Mushrooms and fettuccine in Trastevere, Rome.

Calzone at a sidewalk cafe in Tuscany

Four-cheese pizza in Tuscany

Spinach panini in Florence

Pastries in Florence

Gelato in Florence

That's all for now, but there's more to come. I really did go a bit overboard with food pics.

Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona in Rome is famous for the elaborate fountains by Bernini.

People flock there at all times of day, and so do the pigeons.

A variety of entertainment is available pretty much constantly. Some of these nefarious characters have real talent.

And others, well...it's just not that hard to stand there with a fishbowl on your head, ya know?
Still, she looked good in her blue turban, and that's worth something.

Circle of blue

I'm still writing about Italy and people must be getting tired of it. It's just that I came home with 772 pictures and I have to show every last one, or so it must seem!

The most remarkable thing about the Pantheon in Rome is that it is open to the sky. When the weather is clear you look up from the dim interior to a stunning circle of blue high above: I remember nothing else about the Pantheon except gazing up at this.

Cats and dogs of Rome

One of the archaeological digs in central Rome was crawling with abandoned cats.

It was like a huge playground for them.

But it was actually a sanctioned cat refuge, each animal neutered, vaccinated, and up for adoption.

Some of them were tranquil and sweet,

healthy and attractive.

While others looked, smelled, and felt revolting.

If I lived in Rome guess which one I would have to adopt?

Actually, this terra cotta fellow was in Tuscany, not Rome.

Of course I always notice dogs wherever I go.

Marble sight hounds at play, Vatican museum Hall of the Animals

Even if they're almost 2,000 years old

At the Vatican Museum , Hall of the Animals

And made out of stone.

Dogs on the street in Rome.

However real live dogs are the best.

Coliseum: no justice without life

The Coliseum is an icon of the Roman Empire, so it was a sight we had to see when we were in Rome: everybody should see this place. Built in under 10 years on the site of Nero's palace lake, it wasn't eclipsed until the Houston Astrodome was built almost 2 millenia letter.

The sporting events held here for the pleasure of 50,000 spectators were bloodbaths, and this was a theater of slaughter. Seeing it once was plenty for me.

Marble frieze at the Coliseum

There were battles between gladiators, men who were most often prisoners of war or convicts trained to fight.

Mosaic at the Coliseum

There were animals imported from Africa, killing unarmed prisoners, and then slaughtered by gladiators.

Detail of painting by Peter Wenzel, Vatican Museums

There were other exotic animals, starved and then set loose among elaborate artificial sets.

Animals and prisoners were kept in dungeon-like rooms below the wooden floor of the Coliseum.

Hundreds of men were employed down there, working the complicated pulleys and trapdoors to the surface.

Detail of drawing at the Coliseum

The emperor Trajan celebrated his victories in Dacia, 107AD, with four months worth of bloody, desperate contests involving 10,000 animals and 11,000 gladiators.

Statue in the Hall of Animals, Vatican Museums

This was a place of extreme violence, a symbol of humanity's worst tendencies toward brutality, greed, and corruption of power.

Although these events occurred 2,000 years ago it is a sobering reminder of what the human race is capable of doing.

I was filled with dread here.

Weathered marble, the Coliseum

Was it just the Zeitgeist of the Roman era that gave me the shivers, or is this place so steeped in blood that you can still sense the fear and the awful lust?

AP photo

These days the Coliseum is the ironic symbol for those who wish to see the death penalty abolished. Whenever the death penalty is voted out somewhere in the world, the Coliseum is bathed in golden light in honor of this action. When New Jersey ended capital punishment 3 years ago, the Coliseum was shone in this golden light with the projected words:

No justice without life.

Lost in Rome

You know what's really easy to do when you're in Rome? Get lost, that's what. Even though I had brought with me 2 good city guides plus a great map, we still got lost. Every day. Streets change names, none of them are straight, and plenty of them dead-end. However getting lost was part of the fun.

As one Italian told us: "When you have enough time you are never lost."

We walked to the Vatican but first we found ourselves here, Baby Jesus Pediatric Hospital, because we were lost. Strange blue cast to this picture, almost like an aura.

I don't know why the sky is such a different shade of blue here, because it was a mere 30 or 40 minutes later--when we had found our way--that I gazed up at St Peter's Basilica, next to the Vatican.

In the Vatican Museum, looking out. We found that it is possible to get a little lost here, too, especially if you aren't headed directly towards the Sistine Chapel. That's where most people are headed though, and they rush right through the Hall of maps.

Commissioned in the 1500s, there are surprisingly good detailed maps of the world. People who used maps like this probably hardly ever got lost. At least we did find our way to the Sistine, which lived up to expectations entirely. Pictured here is "Judgment Day" painted on the wall by Michelangelo years after completing the ceiling. Don't forget to look up as you leave the Vatican.

White horse in Rome

495 BC (left) and June, 2010 (right)

Our trip to Italy gave me lots of chances to admire sculpture, especially in Rome. One of my favorites is an ancient, unheralded set of sculptures guarding the top of the steps on Capitoline Hill, Piazza Campidoglio, which Michelangelo was hired to redesign back in the 1560s.

This is Castor and his beautiful horse. A similar statue of Pollux & his horse is on the other side of the marble stairway that they both look down upon.

The two statues are of Castor and Pollux (the twins of Gemini and the product of Leda and the swan). According to legend, Castor and Pollux came to life and helped the Romans win a great battle against the Etruscans in 496BC; thereafter they became objects of worship and sometimes confused in the public mind with Romulus and Remus.



When Michelangelo gave the Piazza its face-lift, he moved the two statues here; they had only just been discovered in 1561 on a site next to the Tiber river. He repaired them at the time, but you can see that the years have been hard on these statues and soon it will be time to do it again.

Pleeeease don't let this beautiful thing fall apart.

He doesn't have stirrups because they hadn't been invented in 176AD (seriously)

My hope is that the white horses of Castor and Pollux will be saved just like this copied bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, which stands near them; it is the most admired sculpture in the piazza. Now housed in a museum, the original is the only surviving bronze statue from antiquity. It survived the Middle Ages only because it was mistaken for the Christian Emperor Constantine. I guess all other bronze statues were melted down to make weapons. Sad.

This is a powerful piece of work, also moved to this location by Michelangelo.

I do think the horse conveys more strength than the rider.

For sheer grace and beauty, though, I loved the white horse of Castor. I bet Michelangelo must have felt the same way.

Already 2,500 years old, I hope it lasts much longer.